Interactive software systems are diverse and valuable tools, providing services that were either never before available, or were previously available only through interaction with a human professional. For example, an interactive software system may provide tax preparation or financial management services. Prior to the advent of interactive software systems, a user would be required to consult with a tax preparation or financial management professional for services and the user would be limited, and potentially inconvenienced, by the hours during which the professional was available for consultation. Furthermore, the user might be required to travel to the professional's physical location. Beyond the inconveniences of scheduling and travel, the user would also be at the mercy of the professional's education, skill, personality, and varying moods. All of these factors resulted in a user vulnerable to human error and variations in human ability and temperament.
Some interactive software systems provide services that human professionals are not capable of providing, and even those interactive software systems providing services similar to those historically provided by human professionals offer many benefits: the interactive software system does not have limited working hours, is not geographically limited, and is not subject to human error or variations in human ability or temperament. Although interactive software systems represent a potentially flexible, highly accessible, and affordable source of services, they do have several significant shortcomings. For example, unlike professionals providing services, traditional interactive software systems cannot detect, much less adjust to, a user's emotional state or tailor their interactions with a user depending upon the user's emotional state. Even though a user may be in a certain emotional state when using the interactive software system or may have certain responses to the interactive software system that change his or her emotional state, interactive software systems are developed in a way that specifically attempts to provide the most useful service to as many of their users as possible, i.e., in a static “one size fits all” approach. Indeed, traditional interactive software systems are, by design, fairly generic in nature and often lack the malleability to meet the specific needs of a given user, much less respond to variations in the emotional state of a given user. As a result, an interactive software system designed for a generic, hypothetical user may alienate a specific user, who generally has a temperament that differs from the temperament of the generic, hypothetical user and whose emotional state may vary from interaction to interaction.
The inability of traditional interactive software systems to meet the needs of specific users and/or adjust to a user's emotional state often results in user frustration, and ultimately, in lost customers. This is because, predictably, when users are alienated from or become frustrated with an interactive software system, they are far more likely to abandon the interactive software system, which results in lost business.
For example, traditional interactive software systems offering tax return preparation services often present a static, predetermined, and pre-packaged user experience to all users as part of the tax return preparation interview process. These user experiences are typically presented to every user with little or no customization; are typically generated in a static and generic manner; and are typically provided via a combination of user experience components, which include, but are not limited to, interface displays, images, background music, and assistance resources. This is largely because traditional interactive software systems provide user experiences by employing static sets of user experience components, which are typically hard-coded elements of the interactive software system and do not lend themselves to effective or efficient modification, or even re-combination.
Because traditional interactive software systems provide a static and generic user experience, they are incapable of adapting the user experience to the user's emotional state. As a result, the user experience and any analysis associated with the user experience is a largely inflexible component of a given version of an interactive software system. Consequently, the user experience of a traditional interactive software system can only be modified through a redeployment or patch of the interactive software system itself. Therefore, there is little or no opportunity for any analytics associated with the user experience to react to the user's emotional state.
For example, in traditional interactive software systems offering tax return preparation services, the user experience elements presented to a user are pre-determined based on a generic user model that is, in fact and by design, not accurately representative of any “real world” user. It is therefore not surprising that many users, if not all users, of traditional interactive software systems find the experience, at best, impersonal. Specifically, users of traditional tax preparation interactive software systems may find the interview experience unnecessarily frustrating and unpleasant. Clearly, this is not the type of impression that results in happy, loyal, repeat customers.
Even worse, in many cases, the inability of traditional interactive software systems to detect or react to a user's emotional state causes users to become frustrated with their user experience, the software system, and the provider of the software system. Many of these users and customers then simply abandon the process and interactive software system completely and may, therefore, never become paying or repeat customers. Furthermore, given the speed and reach of modern communications, any complaints voiced by a dissatisfied user may reach a myriad of other, potential users. Indeed, the number of people that can become the audience for a single complaint is overwhelming and the potential reach of complaints can create serious consequences. For example, after his guitar was broken during a United Airlines flight, musician Dave Carrol filmed a video called “United Breaks Guitars,” which showcased a song he wrote and performed, and uploaded it to YouTube. As of March 2015, the video has been viewed over 14.5 million times. Thus, one dissatisfied customer can have a ripple effect of lost customers. Clearly, this is an undesirable result for both the potential user of the interactive software system and the provider of the interactive software system.
Given the consequences of dissatisfied customers, it is in the best interest of the provider of an interactive software system to provide a dynamic and customized user experience to its users. What is needed is a method and system for obtaining emotional state data associated with a specific software system user and then using that emotional state data to individualize the user experience provided to the specific user.